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Think Music 2013

Our foundation, started in 2010, has already raised more than $10,000 towards the cause of music education.

Keeping music programs funded is essential to a balanced, well-rounded education.

Music classes should be staffed by qualified instructors, so we give scholarships to potential music teachers.

Our annual benefit concert is set for March 9, 2013. This fundraiser aims to raise money to buy branded merchandise to sell at that event.

The Fred R. Peters FREESAX Foundation for Music Education was named for Fred Peters, a longtime music educator in Orange County, California, before he passed away in October of 2010. To celebrate his love for music and his chosen career, his car sported the license plate “FREESAX,” which was a way of his highlighting his job as a freelance saxophone player. We chose our name to remember Fred and his contribution to local music, and to represent one of our most important programs, giving instruments free of charge to needy students (the way Fred did during his career). Music education, like math, science, physical education and language, should be available to all students, regardless of their economic status. FREESAX works to enable students with a passion for music to study it by giving them instruments or monetary support. We are a 501(c)(3) charity and are run entirely by volunteers.

Now entering our third year of existence, we want to branch out a bit from the world of virtual newsletters, Facebook posts, and Tweets. We are putting together our second-annual benefit concert, "Freesax Live Benefit: Think Music" – the proceeds of which will go toward our college scholarship programs, our Arrowbear scholarship program, and towards our goal of funding and outfitting local schools' music programs with much-needed materials. This year's concert, held on March 9, 2013 at J.H. McGaugh Auditorium in Seal Beach, California, will be free (donations requested) so we are looking for alternative ways of raising money. As part of our efforts, we want to enable our concert attendees to support us by purchasing merchandise that calls attention to our cause. We would like to purchase 100 t-shirts, 100 recyclable shopping bags (think green!), and 100 bumper stickers to be sold at our concert and online through our website. If we sell out of these items at our concert, this effort could raise almost $3,000 towards our 2013 programs, enough to fully fund several of our efforts.

The total cost for all these printed items will be around $800 – a modest sum for a fundraising campaign, but no small chunk of change for a non-profit that is volunteer-run! Still, we feel confident that our friends and supporters believe in the value of music in the public schools as much as we do, and that we can raise most of that cost here and cover the excess ourselves. We ask you to take a moment, check out our website, read our latest newsletter (linked to on the website), and give what you can to help us get people to THINK MUSIC.